Failing to master the Adobe cloud and a fun college update :)

Thanks to Sil's email and my sister's .Edu, I have been pulling a Bong Joon-Ho on Adobe and being a Parasite to them. Which is why I wanna master more than Premiere and After effects.

Unfortunately, my computer is old as heck, It's from like, early 2015 minimum. As a result it can't do anything right. It almost accessed photoshop but it fell apart and almost destroyed my laptop so in order to move on w my life in college I will be getting a new laptop.

Speaking of college, I have good options! I won't talk too much about them here cause this is -public domain and I don't trust the government to not snoop around my personal info, but I have gotten into a handful of schools and I can start choosing now!

Am I having near daily anxiety because I haven't committed to a college? YES.

Will that go away? Hopefully!

Stay tuned y'all! Please I am losing it in quarantine!

Things I bought that will now never work and a thing that does (hopefully) work

So a couple weeks ago I bought ~c a m e r a l e n s e f i l t e r s~

Why? you ask...well, it was to make it easier to shoot so I don't have to grade footage as much. I bought: 


A set that kind of looks like that from Amazon. However, the problems began when:
-the yellow filter showed up before all the others, I tried it and it looked -TRASH-
-The blue arrived second and it was broken
-The rest, thanks to COVID disruptions, are due to arrive May 17th...like bro come ON.

In my frustration, I hit up Jules and I asked her to add me to a Canva team so I can help her with the print component if she needs it. She said she will and I will try to update this post with that development once it happens. This collaborative software for print mediums>oxygen right about now. I need something to go my way these weeks.

Catch y'all later. This post will have the catchphrase of:

Miss Rona is ruining my life rn.

What's the deal with film festivals?

I had an interesting thought...

So today, as I was driving my Girlfriend Sil to and from shooting her AS-Level Project at a local restaurant, a woman who worked there mentioned how her daughter is married to Trey Edward Schultz, the director of Waves and a 2-time winner of South By Southwest's (SXSW) film fest.

Since most distribution will be done via festivals for our short film in order of viability, top 5 edition:

1. Sundance-

Pros: Super large and very well known/respected. Independently hosted so vert short film friendly. 

Cons: Super competitive :(

2. Cannes film fest-

Pros: Famous AF. No entry fees. Very lenient on time requirements.

Cons: Picky, arguably most competitive field.

3. TIFF-

Pros: referred to as the "most influential film fest" by TIME mag, Cheap to enter, most globally attended.

Cons: not many that I can identify.

4. Aspen shorts-

Pros: All short films, Oscar-qualifying event, cash prices, massive influence.

Cons: Expensive fees. Highly limited # of spots and very secretive selection system.

5. Palm Springs Short Fest-

Pros: Oscar-qualifying event, largest short film fest in NA, independently run and open to new creators

Cons: High competition

~ALTERNATIVELY~

All festivals are cancelled this year due to COVID.

Distribution will rely on:

Youtube+Vimeo+anywhere I can self-post like my social media-

Cons of this: Not as much exposure, followers can ignore me.

Pros of this: I am shameless, so I can self-promote with 0 consciousness.

Research links:

https://medium.com/@miniflixTV/6-film-festivals-you-must-attend-this-spring-to-see-great-short-films-f552e056d62b

http://resourcemagonline.com/2017/11/20-film-festivals-you-should-enter-your-short-film-into/82548/

Gus Lanz, the mental health research man

So while I sat here wondering "what do I blog about now that the world is basically on the edge of apocalypse/on pause", I decided "hey, representation research is a good move". So here I am with research on representation and some quick statistics for Y'all.

While it took me a while to fully embrace it, this piece is going to represent someone in the throws of a battle with their mental health. This problem is a growing issue amongst Gen Z, and it's one Film makers have been trying to address for a long time.

Wether it's Donnie Darko or Joker, mental health conversations have appeared in some form of mainstream film media over the last 20ish years with varying takes. Joker portrays a man spiraling due to external forces, while movies like Donnie Darko place more emphasis on the internal machinations of the protagonists manifestations, best embodied by the weird creepy rabbit thing: Frank. No, I will not be linking a picture of Frank because it's like 2AM as I write this and that bunny thing freaks me the hell out. No thank you sir. Joker, while it did HAVE a conversation regarding mental health, I feel like it was too all over the place to give a coherent conversation.

Anyways, let's talk Gen Z and our mental health crisis! BOOOOOOO!!!

* a 2019 study found that among undergraduate students, “rates of depression, anxiety, … and suicide attempts markedly increased [from 2007 to 2018], with rates doubling over the period in many cases.”

*Suicide is the 2nd-leading cause of death

*Millenials+Gen Z face highest rates of burnout ever recorded

*Destigmatization efforts have largely failed worldwide

*Overall, are more prone to anxiety, depression, and feelings of loneliness.

Wow those are all horrible things. However, it's those things that my short film allows commentary on, as it revolves around someone sinking into harmful ideation as they're burned out from day-to-day life. Since stigma is still around globally, our scenario of someone going to extreme lengths to retain appearances stands true, and worthy of analytical commentary on the nature of happiness and modern monotony/loneliness.

Anyways, Still can't sign off well, but I'll see y'all next time.

Research links:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/think-act-be/201912/why-young-people-face-major-mental-health-crisis
https://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-teenage-gen-z-american-suicide-epidemic

It's Corona(cation) time AKA the world is ending

OK so Imma keep it short and sweet here. There's not much explaining so much as there is analyzing how annoying this is going to be. COVID-19 has decided to destroy the world as we know it and suspend school indefinitely...whack.

Which raises a bajillion questions:

1. What am I going to DO! Me and Jules have decided to split work so she works on website, I work on film, and we work together on the postcard via Canva (with her taking the lead in it tbh). But even still, cooperation done largely via email cause she's quarantined is rough, AND our actors (specifically the actress from Mirage) are also all quarantined so I have 0 clue how to fix that right now.

2. How will impact supply lines if I decide to buy things for my production?

3.Am I an essential worker?

4. How am I gonna get back on/create a brand new schedule?

And that's barely scratching the surface. Miss Rona is a WHACK gurl, and I am very upset she is derailing the heck out of my project AND school year.

She's FIERCE

Until I can figure out who I can get casted, what I need to buy, or even how I can move on, I will just see what I can get going on.








Anyways, I hate COVID-19.

Here's to hoping for the better,
Gus Lanz (this is the closest I'll ever get to a sign off).

When plans collide (Storyboard ft. final outline+Radio Script)

What's good everyone?

So today was actually a very productive day. I asked Tstock for Storyboard paper. Given that we already had a final outline, I just sketched out the first scenes that are honestly just going to be repeated a bunch of times and help make up the bulk of the exposition of this shirt film.

The actual storyboard

This series of sketches I made for our storyboard also feature some minor instructions for myself. If the actual content of the shot's changes slightly that's a-ok, so long as the bulk/premise of the actual scene stays the same.This came at a perfect time, because Jules and I just wrapped up our final outline COMBINED with the Radio script, which I will feature below.

This post, while admittedly kinda barebones, is just a reflection of the fact that we're gonna be kicking into high gear next week and get this bad boy shot and edited during spring break if all stays on schedule, so I cam trade one bareish post for one great project.

Later y'all, still don't know how to log off in a cool way!

"

Outline

• Man wakes up to the radio. House is very bare but very bright. Cant see face yet and is avoiding.

• Amore Mio Aiutami-esque music playing
• Intermittent radio chatter “remember to smile” “always be happy” radio gets progressively more aggressive 

1. Feet on floor

Good morning! It's October 4th, it's gonna be sunny remember to show the world those pearly whites at all times->fade out 

2. Walk to kitchen
3. Make coffee
4. Take showers
5. Brush teeth in fogged up glass 
6. Get dressed 
7. Look in mirror 

You look great! Ready to take on the day! Forgetting something? *sound* You look GREAT! And remember, don't stop smiling

• Man smiles a toothy grin at himself and and turns around 

1. Feet on floor

Good morning! It's November 5th and a brand new day! Now go get ready to give the world the smile of a lifetime>fade out 

2. Walk to kitchen
3. Make coffee
4. Take shower
5. Brush teeth in fogged up glass 
6. Get dressed 
7. Look in mirror

• Man looks in mirror smiles without teeth

Come on now, don't make me force that smile out of you listener…there we go! Another bright set of teeth! Don't stop smiling, this has been sound o' smiles

1. Feet on floor

Good morning!

2. Make coffee
3. Take shower

 It's December 6th 

4. Brush teeth in fogged up glass 
5. Get dressed 
6. Look in mirror

• Man begins to play with his face to try to contort a smile. Takes out a marker and draws a smile 

Not feeling it today? That's ok! Everyone, and I mean everyone, has those days. You know what I do when I feel down, listener? I do what I can to fix it. Now you do what you can and SMILE!

1. Feet on floor

Good morning! It's January 7th and it's time to get up and be in the world one more time!

2. Walk to kitchen
3. Make coffee

The president made some announcements

4. Take shower in dark 
5. Brush teeth in fogged up glass 

Meaning the Cubs are on their way to the world series

6. Get dressed 
7. Look in mirror

That's far from the best you can do. Are you even trying today? You can do much better than this sorrow...you know what you have to do...There we go, no more frowns! Keep it up champ, you look GREAT!

• Man twists coat hanger to try to make himself smile

1. Feet on floor

Wake up, or can you not even do that anymore

2. Walk to kitchen

You haven't eaten in days, why do you even do this anymore?

3. Make coffee

No one want you around anymore now that you can't smile right

4. Take shower in the dark 

Try harder Champ, you know what you have to do

5. Brush teeth in fogged up glass (cuts on side of mouth)

Come on tiger, do it *faint at first, then loud* do it, do it…*devolves into screeching mess full of expletives*

6. Get dressed 
7. Look in mirror

• Man cuts a smile in the side of his mouth (think joker) 

1. Man doesn't like what he sees
2. Cuts again, this time deeper and more erratically
3. Stares at f-ed up face, which is now half blood/half skin
4. Puts down knife and gets dresses->gets blood on clothes
5. Gets in shower to wash blood
6. Puts on clothes
7. Greets other person at door, their face is also scarred over/deformed

• CUT BLACK"

Eyo, Progress check....

Like the TikTok reference in the title? No? That's ok, me and the Chinese government agent assigned to me when I downloaded it enjoyed it. Anyways, I decided to stop doing the other language title thing cause it was enough of a dose of being pretentious for me. I have been pretentious enough now to last me a lifetime. As a direct result, back to english.

Thing I did yesterday: finalize the outline for the short film. God bless. I think finalizing this was important because I am really looking for a scheme of beats to really stick to once I do get directing the movie. Anyways, lets dive into this outline:

I repeated the scenes, or at least their structure, to really hammer away at the fact a lot of the plot is gonna revolve around c single person's routine and descent/downward spiral. The beats highlighted in blue signify the start of a new day/scene and important visual repetition points that I wanna maintain consistent to flesh out the routine.


 After, there are often descriptors of how I want the character to behave. IDK what the script will look like since Jules officered to write that, but I wanted this to have a similar feel that so I could only rely on this if I needed to.

What I was apprehensive about was wether or not this was going to be visually interesting enough for an at least 5 min. short film, which is why I don't wanna do a shot list I want things to still be dynamic. As result the likely outcome of me not wanting a shot list will be a storyboard.

While I was in my creative swing, I also went ahead and used Google docs to script out the Radio narrator! I wanted it to go from this cheerful, happy anchor to one that's unhinged and aggressive, reflecting the protagonists POV an inner thoughts.

That's the script, I wanted to feature the whole thing because I enjoy it. Since I will be the one delivering it, I feel comfortable saying all those lines and if I wanna ad-lib an extra line, I trust myself to stick to the script for the rest of the script.

Anyways, I feel goof about those progress updates. I'll be back with more soon.

See y'alls later with maybe a proper catchphrase.